Like many people, Kathleen Hall found that despite great success and material wealth, she had yet to identify purpose, meaning and balance in her work and her life.

She left her Wall Street firm and devoted herself to understanding the relationships between mind, body and spirit, and between professional and personal fulfillment.

Since then, she has studied with great spiritual leaders including the DalaiLama, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the exiled Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. She has also learned from medical experts like Dean Ornish of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Herbert Benson at the Harvard Mind-Body Institute.

Inspired by those diverse influences, Hall has written "A Life in Balance: Nourishing the Four Roots of True Happiness" (Amacom paperback, $21.95), a guided journey to joy, peace, and an intentional life grounded in the four roots of the self:

• Serenity. Find what brings you peace, and channel it into everything you do;

• Exercise. Align the body with energy and health through walking, yoga, martial arts and more;

• Love. Build community and relationships that heal others as well as yourself; and

• Food. Pay attention not just to what you eat, but to what you experience through all your senses.

Our lives pull us in many different directions; to find happiness, we must first create balance. Filled with wit, wisdom and compassion, "A Life in Balance" will help any reader identify and stay true to his or her authentic self.